


troubling the waters

by orphan_account



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Gen, lots of talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 12:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12254304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Heaven is in a crisis, Hell is in a bigger crisis, and Jane refuses to let her son stand in as the second coming of Christ. Some discussion is in order.





	troubling the waters

**Author's Note:**

> hi i forgot how to write, domt even touch this cheap shit

Their first time seeing each other in about, oh, one and a half thousand years went about exactly how you’d expect. 

Why had it taken so long, you might ask? Well, it was partly because there had been nowhere before now that they would have trusted each other enough to meet. Nowhere on Earth had had there been a true middle ground, and each of them thought themselves too smart to invite themselves into an ambush. 

So, partly their silence was due to practicality. Mostly, though? Mostly they just really, really,  _ really  _ didn’t want to speak to one another.

But now there was this…  _ thing.  _ This place, a middle ground or something. The story was a bit incredible, acutually - something about a pregnant virgin, Heaven blaming Hell, Hell blaming Heaven, a couple of messengers meeting in the woman’s home to discuss custody of the child’s alignment and, well. Sandwiches. 

Yep. She made them sandwiches and told them to calm down and explained how it wasn’t some divine miracle, just. An extremely uncanny medical mistake. 

And despite the angels’ pledge that God may work in mysterious ways, the mother was staunchly refusing to take a stance. The two sides, however, didn’t trust each other enough to leave her alone. So they stuck around. Angels and demons flitting in and out whenever they pleased, starting up age-old arguments that she ended up being the one to put a stop to. Her house became a place for breakroom gossip and eased tensions - insofar as tensions  _ could  _ be eased. 

So, really. What better place to talk through an age-old grudge than with a pregnant virgin pacifist as a mediator? 

But, well… the pregnant virgin pacifist wasn’t at home when Rafael arrived, and breaking that petty silence that had lasted one and a half thousand years without having her there to mediate? 

It went about exactly how you’d expected.

“You’re still using that name?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, just,” Michael shrugged, forcibly casual, “you know. That’s the name the Father gave you,” he reasoned, laughing like it wasn’t funny at all.

“Yes?” Rafael prompted, eyebrows twitching up in a display of unimpressed incredulity.

“And you, you know.” Michael pushed his lips into one of those scathing, degrading pouts. “Cast him out of your life when you disgraced yourself. Not too long ago, actually.”

“Ah,” Rafael smiled at him, thin and sharp, inclined his head in mocking acquiescence, “Of  course. Didn’t realise this was…” He glanced aside, let that narrow smile turn mocking for the moment it was pinned on the flutter of lace and gauze curtains. “Well,” he said, glancing down. 

“What,” Michael scoffed, looked around the room as though searching for Rafael’s excuse, “you didn’t realise this was going to be a  _ discussion?” _

Jaw jumping, Rafael shot a look up at Michael. Reprimanding. Cold. “What’s there to discuss?” he bit out, hardly a question. 

“Oh, you know,” Michael smiled down at his feet, scuffed the heel of his worn shoes against the tacky linoleum floor and glanced up at Rafael from beneath his brow. “How you screwed us over in a deal that could have  _ ended this war-” _

_ “Nothing,”  _ Rafael snapped, “could have ended this war-”

“See,” Michael spoke over him, heated, looking Rafael straight in the eye with all his veiled fury, hands fisted in his pockets,  _ “that’s  _ your problem.” Rafael arched his brows, slid his hands into his own pockets. Set his shoulders back in a front of openness, condescension curling in the corners of his smile. “You refuse to believe there could be a way to  _ finish  _ this-”

“There  _ is  _ no way,” Rafael rebutted, standing tall in the small house, “to finish this.”

“So you  _ defected?”  _ Michael rejoined, shoulders back, his body language a mockery of Rafael’s.

“So I  _ transferred-” _

“What,” Michael demanded, not even bothering to hide how enraged he was, “like, departments? Like this is a  _ bank?” _

_ “My point of view,”  _ Rafael continued, heated, voice coiled tight with bitter frustration, “to a place where we might be able to-”

“Your  _ point of view,”  _ Michael repeated, incredulous, then tilted his head back to let out a scathing laugh. “You threw  _ everything  _ we’ve worked for into the abyss, and followed right after.”

Rafael’s lips twisted in something like a sneer when he countered, “You’re being so dramatic. If you’d just let me  _ explain  _ myself-”

_ “I’ve been waiting,”  _ Michael cried, throwing his hands up.  _ “Years.  _ For you to explain yourself. Centuries.  _ Fifteen centuries.” _

“I tried to make things  _ fair-” _

_ “Fair?”  _ Michael demanded, voice loud and coloured in enraged disbelief. “How is any of this  _ fair?” _

“I’m ho...oooome. Oh.”

Rafael’s attention snapped to the open door and the girl standing there, and Michael hung his head in an effort to reign in the burning frustration Rafael had managed to drag from him within, what, two minutes?

“Um,” she said into the pregnant silence suddenly hanging like an icy shroud around the room - pregnant due only in part to the fact she was, uh. Pregnant. 

Well, not  _ noticeably  _ so, perhaps. Not to a human, at least. But Rafael could feel the soul cradled within hers as easily as Michael could - the same as they could both sense her untouched purity. She was, undoubtedly, the woman who’d started all this.

“Do you, uhm,” Jane started, glancing quickly between the two of them before settling her eyes on Rafael. “Would you… like me to make some sandwiches?” she hazarded, glancing surreptitiously back at Michael, a fervent question written in her arched brows. 

“I’ll help,” Michael stated, twisting on his heel and striding into an adjoining kitchen. 

Rafael breathed out deliberately, let the snake of bitter frustration uncoil from around his chest, and lifted a hand to gesture for the woman to walk ahead of him. “Thank you,” he murmured, dipped his head in tense thanks. 

“O...kay,” she said, hesitated a moment before darting to follow Michael with a hop in her step. Inquisitive, intrigued, and more than a little confused.

Rafael waited, shook his head once she was gone and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Yeah, about what you’d expect. 

He forced himself to take a short, steadying breath before looking up, straightening his shoulders and following them in.

“Soooooo,” the girl was leading, unabashed in her desire for answers. “What’s the deal? He a friend of yours?”

Friend obviously being, well. Nothing more than a filler word. There wasn’t a breath of possibility that she’d missed the tension burning between the two of them. 

Michael, when Rafael came to lean against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest, was buttering slices of bread. Four slices, in fact. Rafael glared at the toaster in favour of rolling his eyes.

“Wouldn’t say so,” was all Michael had to say about that, but the girl picked up the loaf from the counter and pulled out two more slices, placed them unobtrusively with the others Michael was working on before she spoke. 

“Sounds like there’s some history there,” she prompted.

Rafael huffed half a laugh and met the cold glance Michael shot him without flinching. 

“Rafael,” Michael bit out as though the word were rotten while he continued to build two of the three sandwiches arranged before him, “is the reason we’re here.”

“We…” the girl started, leading, and then picked up the thread when no-one else offered to take over. “As in, the two of you? In my kitchen?”

“As in,” Michael corrected, icy, lifting a knife to cut the two sandwiches into triangles, “you and me and him and everyone who comes to this house. He’s the  _ reason,”  _ he continued, voice already tight with anger while he scooped the sandwiches onto the plates the girl had pulled down for him, “Heaven and Hell are still warring over Earth.”

“That is,” the girl started, and then scoffed a genuinely amused laugh, “a  _ lot  _ of blame to put on one guy. I mean,” she shrugged, accepting the plate Michael handed her and immediately palming it off to Rafael, “surely there were others involved. Lucifer, perhaps? Uriel?”

“Uriel’s an idiot,” Rafael muttered, pushing the plate onto the bench without looking at the sandwich.

“Uriel,” Michael snorted, nodding that condescending nod of his,  _ “is  _ an idiot.”

“Guess the two of you agree on  _ something,”  _ the girl reasoned, and then glanced from Rafael’s crossed arms to the untouched sandwich on the bench. “Eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Rafael smiled, “thanks.”

“Of course you’re not hungry,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re an angel.”

“Uh-” Michael started to say.

“I’m-” Rafael stumbled to correct, the girl glancing between them with eyebrows arched in confusion. 

“Actually, he’s-”

“I’m sort of a-”

“Demon?” Michael said, not sounding sure at all. 

“Uh,” Rafael glanced at him, then at the girl. Then back at him. “Uhm, yeah, that’s. I mean, I guess that’s. True. Sure.”

The girl looked between them again, eyes wide with an almost amused question, the corners of her lips curled in what might have been a smile. “Sort of?” she pressed.

“I didn’t,” Rafael tried to reason, struggling to veil his uncertainty.  _ “Fall,  _ in the traditional sense.”

“Maybe not traditional,” Michael muttered, “but I’d  _ definitely  _ say you fell.”

“I  _ apostatised,”  _ Rafael corrected, bringing back that narrow smile in an effort to stay civil. 

“He defected,” Michael said directly to the girl, not looking at Rafael, “to make things  _ fair,”  _ he sneered, glancing over her head to pin Rafael with that unimpressed look on his face. “According to him.”

The girl looked only as though she expected them to answer all the questions they were raising. “Weren’t they… already fair?” she laughed awkwardly, fingers interlocking. “You know. Considering how long this whole thing has been going on. Figured you were at a bit of an impasse,” she reasoned, and accepted the second plate that Michael held out for her as he shot a scathing glance between Rafael and the sandwich that had obviously not been intended for him.

“They had a sole representative,” Rafael reasoned, voice smooth and collected. He spread his hands in a shrug, open posture. “We had three.”

“What,” Michael scoffed, incredulous, “so you followed Luciel because you felt  _ sorry  _ for her?”

“It had nothing to do with my  _ feelings,”  _ Rafael stressed, pushing himself to stand up straight in the doorway, arms folded across his chest once more. An imposing presence, and not one that intimidated Michael at all. 

“Oh,” he laughed, “it has  _ everything  _ to do with your feelings,” he insisted, fists clenched by his sides.

“I made a logical decision, economical and fair, because  _ you  _ refused to.”

“What, I refused to shame the Father and spurn my name?”

“You’re a  _ pet,”  _ Rafael hissed, “born to blindly follow. You can’t  _ think,  _ you can’t see beyond the scope of what you’ve been  _ told-” _

“So this,” Michael laughed again, gestured uselessly between them, “this is  _ enlightenment?  _ Cause that is the oldest story in the book.  _ The oldest.  _ That is straight up Genesis.”

“I didn’t say  _ enlightenment,”  _ Rafael seethed, jaw tight, “but you’re so terrified of  _ falling  _ that you refuse to think for yourself.”

“And look where ‘thinking for yourself’ got you!” Michael returned, honest to God drawing quotes around his words. “Prince of Hell, flashy corner office. Tell me, do you get to wear a crown? Attend all those pretty functions? Revel in your debauchery?”

Rafael breathed out, sharp and heavy, and took a single menacing step into the room, eyes unwavering from Michael. “I’m a _healer,_ Michael,” he reminded, cold, and looked as though he were trying desperately to keep himself far enough away from Michael that he wouldn’t be tempted to strike him. 

“You’re a lying, manipulative son of a bitch,” he gritted.

“Oooh,” Rafael pursed his lips around the way they curled into a victorious smile, the fight quite suddenly draining from him, “better watch your mouth, Golden Boy. Don’t want those anger problems upsetting the balance you’re so mad at me for creating.”

“Take your smug pride and go to Hell,” he seethed, refusing to fill that deliberate space between them and take the first swing.

“Fifteen centuries ahead of you,” Rafael smirked, inclining his head in mocking acquiescence. “It’s quite my taste, actually.”

There was a moment of savage victory for Rafael when he saw Michael’s face twist, contorting briefly with rage, but before he could do anything drastic Jane stepped between them, back to Rafael. 

_ “Michael,”  _ she snapped, brusque and firm. “Just. Breathe, okay? Come on, let’s all just,” she stepped back a bit, turned to include Rafael and gestured out of the kitchen. “Go sit down and talk about this. Like  _ adults,”  _ she stressed, her reprimanding glare darting from Michael’s wrath to Rafael’s smug ease.

Rafael arched his brows at Michael, a silent mockery, and turned to meander back to the lounge room, satisfied as a cat with a canary. They followed behind him, and Rafael folded himself comfortably onto the armchair, the faded floral print screaming a grandmother’s hand-me-downs. 

Once Michael and Jane had settled on the sofa - one tense and frustrated, the other straight and proper, Jane prompted, “So? Michael?” He tore his eyes from where he was dragging a disgusted glance over Rafael to offer her a sound of reluctantly polite question. She encouraged, “What would you like to say to Rafael?”

But, well. Michael was still too busy seething to offer an answer.

Still with that proud cockiness lacing his tone in teasing amusement, Rafael supplied with half a laugh, “Oh, I’m sure there are a few things he’d  _ like  _ to say to me.”

_ “Rafael,”  _ Jane snapped, shooting him a scolding look. He arched his brows in unaffected acquiescence and she commanded, “Stop antagonising him. We’re trying to sort this out, remember? Not blow up my abuela’s house.”

“I could fix it, of course,” Rafael reasoned, smooth and confident, and picked at the faded upholstery of the armchair. 

“Not if you’re dead,” Jane countered, and Rafael let a small smile curl onto his lips at the touch of competitiveness he found in her voice.   
  
“You can’t fix  _ anything,”  _ Michael muttered, sour. “All you do is bring ruin,” he said, completely ruining the momentary tone of teasing lightheartedness.

Rafael couldn’t help the way that made him roll his eyes a little, and didn’t really make an effort to stop the snort of mocking laughter. “Oh, no. See,  _ you’re  _ the hot headed leader of the Lord’s armies,” he reminded. “I’m just the one who’s left to pick up the pieces.”

“OKAY,” Jane cried out before Michael could come back with a heated rebuttal,  _ “how about  _ we start with Rafael then,” she suggested, forcefully cheerful. They both looked back at her and she corrected her posture and gestured to Rafael with affected propriety. “Rafael,” she said, clear and calm like someone who took one psychology class and then forgot to go for the rest of the semester - which, knowing Jane, obviously wasn’t true. She  _ had _ transferred out of the class after one session though. “what would you like to say to Michael?”

Let it be known that Rafael did consider doing something stupid right then - mocking her methods, or asking why she was treating them like children. 

Let it also be known that his reason for reconsidering that action was also quite stupid. A mental shrug, and the reasoning that expectant mothers must start treating  _ everyone  _ around them as though they were children. Some hormonal thing, perhaps. He’d never met one, after all.

And yet, Jane’s age-old technique (that had nothing to do with her pregnancy, in fact) did actually end up working. In that Rafael, upon being addressed like a child, finally started acting like an adult.

He sat back in his chair, pulled in a contemplative breath and pursed his lips, let his eyes scan critically over Michael’s irate posture. His gaze darted to Jane for a moment before he tangled his hands loose in his lap and said, “I have a proposition.”

Michael’s response came quickly, and verged on disgusted. “I am not making a  _ deal  _ with you.”

A corner of his mouth twitching in a mockery of a condescending smile, Rafael reassured, “Calm down. You’re not signing anything.” 

The moment Jane shot him a reprimanding glare, Rafael huffed out a breath, let everything that was upping Michael’s defences fall away from him. Calm, centered. Genuine, when he spoke again. “I just want to talk.”

“You’ve already said enough,” Michael bit out, hardly impressed by Rafael’s efforts at sincerity.

Honest, a touch earnest, Rafael leaned forwards, elbows resting on his knees, and stressed, “It’s important. You  _ know  _ it’s important. I wouldn’t have bothered speaking to you if it wasn’t.”

Michael sat forwards to match him, jaw tight when he said, “I don’t owe you the courtesy of listening. In fact,” he remarked ,voice quiet as a threat and painfully pleasant, “I don’t owe you  _ anything.” _

“Michael,” Jane offered, hesitant, “just… hear him out. There’s no harm in listening.”

Michael’s lips twitched as though he wanted to sneed, and his voice was thick with scathing distrust. “With these…  _ things,”  _ he settled on, eyes raking over Rafael in thinly-veiled disgust, “there is.”

Rafael straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. That front of calmness still sitting in his voice, he reasoned, a touch coldly, “If I can put aside my  _ pride  _ and let that comment go, then you can listen to me with clear judgement.”

Michael sat back, eyes running over him, and Rafael met his gaze without flinching, unwavering. 

After a long, tense silence, Michael said, not looking away from Rafael, “Jane, could you go to the kitchen please.”

She glanced between them, allowed herself a moment's hesitation before she stood. “Of either one of you is gone when I get back,” she warned, her glare somehow more imposing than antagonism from either an Archangel or a Prince of Hell, “then neither of you are allowed back here.”

She turned to leave only once they’d both nodded their reluctant understanding, and both sat in tense silence until they heard the click and faint rumble of the kettle. 

At length, Michael sat back, eyes unwavering where they were pinned on Rafael. “Talk,” he commanded.

“We’re in a crisis,” Rafael said, voice pitched low, leaning forward to convey the severity of what he was saying.  _ “All  _ of us,” he stressed. “The situation in Hell is worse than you could imagine - it’s full to bursting.” Michael watched with that same contemplative gaze, unmoved but for the small frown creasing his brow. Earnest, Rafael reasoned, “It’s only a matter of time-”

“It’s  _ always  _ been a matter of time,” Michael interrupted, as though Rafael didn’t  _ know  _ that.

Fervent, he hissed,  _ “And there hasn’t been a second coming.”  _ He paused a moment, sat back and pulled in a steadying breath. “This girl?” he pointed towards the kitchen, “this  _ child?  _ She’s not going to choose a side,” he stated, almost  _ pleaded.  _ “She wants to end this war,” he said, “and she knows she’s not going to do it by chosing sides.” He paused, pressed his lips together. Glanced down, and clenched his fingers. “I don’t know if we can hold out another century,” he confessed, low and almost defeated. Looking up from beneath his brows, he demanded of Michael, “What’s your  _ plan?” _

Michael leaned in, reigned his anger into an undertone and countered, “Why would I tell  _ you?” _

Rafael pressed his hands to his face for a brief moment before spreading them in frustrated helplessness and admitting, “Because Hell doesn’t have one. We don’t have a plan.  _ At all.”  _ He sighed and dropped his head, brought his hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “We all want this war to end,” he muttered, eyes closed. “None of us want an ultimatum. If we can… fix the issue,” he tried, dropping his hand and shaking his head,  _ “somehow.  _ Then it won’t have to come to that.”

Michael sat with his eyes closed, a sigh caught in his throat, shaking his head with his hands dropped loose and defeated between his knees. “It’s always had to come to that,” he said, voice distant.

_ “Why,”  _ Rafael stressed, earnest once more. “Because God said so? Tell me,” he scowled, “has he said anything else recently? Because it’d been  _ five hundred years  _ of silence,” he reminded scathingly, “when I last checked in.”

Michael dropped his head and sighed into his hands. “Nothing,” he admitted, lost. “We haven’t heard anything. The Father is gone, the Holy Spirit is silent, and the Son needs the two of them to act in order to be reborn.” He looked up, and with that veiled fear in his expression, as though he was pleading for Rafael to make some sense of it, it was almost like the past fifteen centuries had never happened. “Everyone’s stressed,” he confessed, “some are panicking.” 

He let his hands fall down between his knees once more and pinned Rafael with an unwavering stare. Voice firm, the momentary lapse overcome and that foreign distance wedged between them, Michael stated, “But it falls to me to ensure things continue as they should.”

“The last thing I want is for Hell to rise,” Rafael pleaded. “The last thing  _ Lu  _ wants is for hell to rise. And…” he trailed off, forced a sigh and dragged his fingers across his forehead. “We’ve been trying something,” he admitted, a touch reluctant, “since I… fell. And so far as we can tell, it works. But,” he hesitated again, unsure, watching Michael’s guarded expression, “we need your help.”

Michael scoffed at that, but disbelief was better than outrage, so Rafael drew in a quick breath and pressed on.

“Hell can’t do this alone,” he said. “And if there’s even a  _ breath  _ of a chance of it working, that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

Michael blinked, lips tight in gathering suspicion. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, cautious.

“I told you,” Rafael stressed, “I didn’t just  _ defect.  _ I wanted to make a change,” he said, spreading his hands “I wanted to  _ help.  _ And I have,” he reasoned. “I  _ am.  _ Lu and I-”

“What did you  _ do?”  _ Michael demanded, voice a warning, and Rafael’s eyes flickered to Jane, unobtrusively making her way back to the lounge room with three steaming mugs held carefully in her hands.

“I’m a healer, Michael,” Rafael tried, but he knew from the twist to Michael’s lips that wasn’t going to cut it. “I’ve always been a healer.”

“A healer,” he scoffed a bitter laugh. “That’s a joke. You abandoned that title,” he reminded viciously, “when you abandoned the Pool of Bethesda.”

“Hell isn’t a  _ prison  _ anymore,” Rafael tried, fervent. “It exists to retemper the souls Heaven doesn’t accept. Rehabilitate them,” he reasoned, “in a way.” Jane straightened from where she’d arranged the mugs around the coffee table and Rafael looked pointedly at her stomach. “He’s one of ours, actually,” he said, letting his lips curl into a small, private smile while he reached for the tea Jane had brought. “And I assure you,” he added, glancing up to meet her eyes with a teasing grin, charming, “he’s an absolute angel.”

“What do you mean?” Michael demanded, not at all allayed, and stood quickly as though Rafael had threatened her. Soldier of God, always prepared to guard their humans from a demon. “That child came from Heaven,” he rebutted, stiff and defensive.

“Seriously?” Jane muttered, exasperated, while Rafael took a moment to sip his tea.

“I never forget a face,” he said, voice smooth and unconcerned.

“So,” Michael insisted, hands clenched by his sides, “maybe he cycked through a couple of millennia ago. Before you dropped the ball.”

Jane, more than annoyed, demanded,  _ “Are we seriously back on this argument?” _

Rafael smiled as thin as his patience and reminded quietly, “My duty wasn’t sould, Michael. I never came in contact with them.”

“That child,” he fumed, pointing at Jane, “has  _ never  _ been to Hell.”

“I can  _ assure  _ you,” Rafael gritted through what remained of his pleasantry, “I don’t recognise it from halls I Never stepped foot in.”

“That’s a pure soul,” Michael barked, “untouched by sin,” and really that was all Rafael needed to hear from him to bring that sly, confident smile back.

He sat back in his seat, brought his tea to his lips and murmured teasingly, “It’s always been my job to trouble the waters.” Arching a brow, he reminded, “It wasn’t Bethesda that healed those people. Terminal illness, gone as though it had never existed.” He smirked. “A baptism, of sorts.”

Cautious, and more than a touch concerned, Michael demanded, “What are you planning?”

“The soul is healthy,” Rafael reminded, voice easy with reassurance. “Untouched. I was useless as a healer to those who had no need of me.”

From the look on his face, Michael was catching on. From the look on Jane’s, she was as lost as a fish out of water.

“Why are you doing this?” Michael insisted.

And, well. That was easy enough to answer. “I want to end the war.”

“You said there  _ was  _ no end,” Michael reminded, confused and still seething in his frustration.

“If you’re thinking Hell marrying with Heaven,” Rafael reasoned, voice gentle and calming while Michael finally lowered himself back down, “then you’re right. It’s a matter of logistics,” he reasoned with a short shrug. “But the arguments and petty blame?” he said, almost begging. “We’re only rehashing things that have already been said a thousand times over.”

Michael pulled in a deep breath, and looked as though he was struggling not to start another of those same arguments. At length, stilted, he asked, “What are you asking?”

Rafael looked at his hands as he set the tea back on the table, clasped them in his lap and looked up at Michael. No deviance, no wheedling. “I need the pools,” he said, plain and simple, eyes on Michael’s face. “There’s too many souls,” he reasoned, voice a touch pained. “Hell has been operating as a holding facility for millennia. Lu’s lucky I came when I did - they’re backed up to bursting.” He paused, caught his words for a moment. “But I can only do so much.”

A scathing scoff was his only answer, and Rafael stressed,  _ “Michael.  _ You can’t make it to every man as he dies.” He spread his hands, helplessly gesturing to the angel across from him. “You can’t redeem every soul in its final moments. I can’t heal the entire history of Man’s sin in a few short centuries.” Pleading, desperate, he repeated,  _ “I need the pools.” _

Michael glanced away, shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, and almost sounded apologetic. Almost. “Even if I wanted to, I  _ can’t.  _ You gave up Bethesda,” he reasoned, pained. “You gave up the staff.”

“I have a staff,” Rafael said, sitting straighter.

“You have a serpent?” Michael demanded.

“The Bronze Snake,” Rafael confirmed, nodding. “She’s helping me-”

Cautious as ever, Michael stated, “I don't trust  _ anything  _ that comes from that place.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Rafael reminded, “Serpents are healers, Michael. Petra is going to help. She wants the same things I do.”

“Either way!” he commented, sharp and frustrated, “There’s nothing I can  _ do!  _ The Pools are holy,” he reminded, frustration ebbing to hopelessness, “you can’t… You’re the one who blessed then,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You were the only one who would have been able to allow a demon on that consecrated ground, and now?” Rafael dropped his head with a pained, disappointed sigh. Almost apologetic, Michael said, “I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

“There  _ has  _ to be,” Rafael gritted, “there has to be  _ something.” _

“We could ask Xo,” Jane commented from her unobtrusive sets, tea cradled in her hands.

Rafael and Michael caught their despair and glanced up, pinned her with sharp, questioning glances.

“Xiomara?” she proposed, arching her brows at them.

“Oh,” Michael allowed, seeming to actually know what she was talking about. “I mean,” he hesitated, “yeah, that could work.”

Rafael cleared his throat and tried  “What, uh. Who’s Xiomara?”

“She’s my angel!” Jane announced, perking up with a cute little grin, “and she knows  _ everyone,  _ Hell included. If anyone knows someone who can find a loophole in this sacrament thing,” she shrugged cheerfully, “it’ll be her.”

Rafael glanced at Michael, eyebrows raised in question, and Michael shrugged back helplessly. “It’s worth a shot,” he said, sounding a little doubtful.

“Sweet!” Jane announced, her grin widening. “She said she’d come by tomorrow sometime, so I’ll ask her about it then. Give us a couple of days?”

Rafael glanced between Jane’s hopeful face and Michael’s concerned one, hesitating for a long moment before nodding. “I’ll send someone to check in,” he said, and pushed himself to stand. Glancing between them again and settling on Michael he asked, “Is there anything else we need to discuss?”

“I’d like to meet the serpent,” he said, “before we sign anything over. But other than that?” he shrugged. “You’re free to go.”

Rafael smiled, challenging and mocking, and countered, “Want to release the charms, perhaps?”

He grinned, a little bit sheepish, and gestured to nullify the bonds around the house - ones that stopped any traffic through the Earthly plane within the house. “Didn’t want you disappearing on me.”

“Michael,” he scolded with a smile, eyes narrow, “if we’re on the same team, I need you to trust me.”

He arched his brows and allowed, “I can only promise to try.”

Rafael shrugged a little, accepting that, and turned that small smile to Jane. “News within two days,” he said, a gentle reminder. “The sooner this matter is resolved, the better.”

And with that he left, slipped through the familiar channels and ley lines to an unassuming corner office in an unassuming law firm filled with unassuming demons. With a hefty sigh, Rafael fell into the chair and pulled it in against the desk. 

Before he could reach for the phone the office door snapped open and the Bronze Serpent sauntered in, kitten heels sharp on the tile floors, that dangerous smile sitting on her pretty face.

“That golden tongue of yours,” she smirked, voice low and coy while she came to place the files cradled in her arms onto his desk, “serves us better than I thought possible.”

“You heard everything?” he ensured, removing his tie pin and pushing it across the desk to her before leaning back comfortably, an ankle hooked over his knee and his hands folded across his stomach.

“Every word,” she confirmed, smug, and picked up the pin. “I almost started believing you myself, you know,” she said, arching a fine blonde brow at him.

Rafael kept his gaze on his hands, wouldn’t look up to meet her sharp eyes. “Yeah,” he breathed on a sigh after a long moment had passed, “so did I.”

There was a short pause, and she scoffed a laugh. “Oh come  _ on,  _ Rafael,” she enunciated, lifting her chin like a challenge. “We’ve been planning this for  _ centuries.” _

“And the  _ only reason _ I managed to convince him,” Rafael countered, lifting his eyes to pin her with an unwavering stare, “was because everything I said is true.” He placed his elbows on the desk, rested his chin atop his hands. “The proof is in that child she’s carrying.”

“What are you saying?” she demanded, eyes narrow.

Rafael pulled in a deep breath and spread his hands. “We can give these souls another chance,” he said.

Her response was a disgusted sigh, laced thick with derisive condescension. “Don’t be naive,” she snapped, tossing her head sharply, expression set in unimpressed frustration.

“It’s not though,” Rafael insisted, leaning forwards a little, “is it. It’s true. With the Pools and a holy staff, I can trouble the waters for the sick. I can  _ fix  _ this,” he stressed, pleaded.

She shook her head minutely, lips pressed tight. “You can’t go back, Rafael,” she said, stern and still so frustrated. “You  _ know  _ that. You can’t set foot near the pools, you can’t  _ touch  _ a blessed artefact. You’d,” she stopped, voice caught.  _ “Die,”  _ she forced herself to say, sounding more angry than anything, “you’d be  _ destroyed.” _

“Not with Heaven’s help,” Rafael countered, no fire behind his certainty. 

Petra stayed for a moment, not certain what words she needed, and demanded, stiff and icy, “What are you trying to prove?”

“I have  _ nothing  _ to prove,” Rafael spread his hands, leaning back in his chair and letting them fall limp in his lap. “I've only ever wanted one thing,” he said, firm in his refusal to back down. “My family. Together. And going through with  _ this?”  _ He gestured at her, as though she embodied the treachery they’d planned. “If Lu and I aren’t killed,” he breathed a bitter, unamused laugh, “then Michael and Gabriel are.”

Desperate, Petra insisted, “If you have me poison the pools, we can turn the damned to demons. We can  _ win,”  _ she breathed, fervent.

_ “It’s not about winning,”  _ Rafael snapped, flashing a glare up at her. “This isn’t some meaningless competition,” he pressed. “I gave up my family. To  _ save  _ them. I may have lost any right to speak to them,” he said, clinging to frustration to hide how much that hurt, “but the last thing I want is to have then  _ killed.” _

Petra forced a huff of a laugh and took a step back, pulling those files off Rafael’s desk and back into her arms. “Right,” she scoffed, “well.” A sharp smile fixed to her face, cold and toxic. “Good luck finding another serpent willing to help an archangel in Hell.”

“There are plenty in heaven,” he muttered, no fight left in him. 

“Right,” she laughed, short and bitter, “and what are you going to tell Luciel?”

“Whatever I have to “ Rafael said, and glanced up at her from under his arched brows. “The truth, perhaps.”

“And even if she goes for it,” she said  giving her head another short toss “What does  _ that  _ get us?”

“A chance,” Rafael said, planting his elbows on the desk and pinning her with pleading eyes. “Don’t work against me on this, Petra,” he begged.

“You think Michael trusts you?” she said rather than answer, chin high.

“He trusts me enough to try,” Rafael answered, the best he could give her.

She scoffed a laugh, vindictively amused, and took another step back. “You keep turning your back on people like this,” she warned, “and soon you won’t have anyone to turn to.” With that she twisted on her heel and left the room, footsteps sharp on the tile floor. She snapped the door closed behind herx and disappeared from the Earthly plane.

Quiet, to the silent room and to God above, Rafael looked at his empty hands and muttered, “Thanks for your concern.”


End file.
